Death Blow to a Dream

Incredible. It’s the only word that came to mind for it. Incredible. Not in the wow-that’s-amazing-and-I-can-hardly-believe-it positive sense, but in the I-can’t-believe-that-he-just-had-the-audacity-to-tell-me-what-he-just-told-me-while-doing-what-he’s-doing negative sense. I was sitting in one of the comfortable chairs, my legs twisted up underneath me, in a dark corner of a Starbucks on the western edge of Colorado Springs, where the foothills start to swallow up the plains and the houses become fewer and farther between. And to think that I was almost sick with anxiety and excitement about seeing him tonight.

I’d even invoked some of the obsessive compulsive planning skills, the ones I’d been trying to tame (thus making way for a more spontaneous and enjoyable life), to come into play for the evening. But we planned our rendez-vous in advance of his departure from Europe because we weren’t sure we’d have a reliable way to find each other once he hopped the pond, so I’d known about two weeks in advance of this dinner date what the plan actually was. I intended to dress for success, although I wasn’t quite sure how I was defining success for this particular occasion. I think that the goal was exactly what it always was for me: to be completely irresistible and completely unattainable at the same time. It was the one game I’d always been good at, and I played it better than most, which only added to my irresistibility and increased my personal ability to remain unattainable. It was a game that was much easier than actually loving someone.

I’d known for about two weeks when and where we would get together, so I had plenty of time to plan every contingency and give myself the greatest advantage in this game of attraction. It’d been years since we’d seen each other, although I was certain that his vanity would mean that he would look nearly the same as he had in college – although with possibly less hair, which was beyond his control. I had aged in style, but my face is still youthful, so I chose my outfit accordingly: maroon knee length skirt and the pink and brown flowered cowboy blouse with my canvas ankle-wrap shoes. I look good in that outfit, in a girlish, charming, professional yet artistic sort of way – the way that suited me better than pure sensuality. Sensuality just makes me awkward.

I’d worn the outfit to work one day. Compliments, like sensualtity, usually make me feel extremely uncomfortable, but I got one about the outfit the day I’d worn it to work. It had made me feel good. I had smiled.

“You look adorable,” a fatherly-figure co-worker had commented. He said it the way a father would say it when he was hoping you’d take notice of his son who is the same age as you and really needs a strong woman to help him through his 20’s without going wild. I tried that once. It didn’t work out.

I didn’t wear the outfit, or any of its components, during the weeks leading up to the rendez-vous. Laundry happened only when I had quarters. I never had a lot of quarters, so when I was in college, I started planning very carefully what I would wear and when. Mostly for special occasions and trips, but for everyday life too. Most people think this habit is annoying. A few people think it is cute. All people laugh at me for it, which I’m beginning to figure out might be my greatest gift to other people…giving them something to laugh about.

I think I cared more about our rendez-vous than he did. He, being unemployed at the time, chose something a bit more Colorado-esque. Something that made him irresistible in the I-live-in-Colorado-and-have-embraced-the-lifestyle way; something that revealed just enough of his musculature for a person to notice he was chiseled, but not to an extreme. His attire and attitude were curious since he hadn’t lived in the state for seven years or more, nor had he spent more than five years of his 31-year life there. It was exactly as I’d remembered him always looking, except for the tattoo of a Greek philosopher he now sported on the inside of his left forearm. The tattoo fit well with his persona though, and only increased his allure.

Yeah, it was still the same person he’d been seven years ago when we wished each other adieu and bon voyage. That’s what I was thinking, again, during dinner when he winked and smiled at me, as if he knew that I was thinking something I might want to share with him. He loved it when people fed his ego. The wink and the smile were something he’d learned to do when we were in school together. We were forbidden from talking much or developing any sort of relationship outside the professional realm, so his wink had always meant he was thinking of me and he wanted to talk later. Later, sometimes we talked.

“What?” he asked.

“Absolutely nothing, which is a lie, but you know that,” I responded with a smile as equally vibrant as the one he wore. Oh, I wanted to tell him what I was thinking, but something inside told me that now was not the time or the place. And so I held my tongue.

Looking back, holding my tongue was probably some sort of divine intervention being kindly bestowed upon me to save me from embarrassment. MOD – short for man of dreams, which is what he’d been known as by my family for several years – was about to utter a sentence that would change our relationship forever. I shouldn’t have really been as surprised as I seemed, since he’d always had a way with dropping really important things in really casual manners, but I was. Although I thought I hid it well. (You’ll have to ask him if that’s actually true.)

Up until that point, the dinner had been going very well. Certainly I’d shown up late and sporting a black eye, but we’d quickly fallen into our old habits. Conversation was easy, flirtation gratuitous and exchanged equally on both sides of the table, as was the almost obligatory disbelief that we were actually eating dinner across the same table was expressed. I’d asked about his new tattoo and where he’d gotten the idea. He’d asked about how I’d gotten my black eye and if I thought the waitress thought he was hitting me. He asked whether or not I was seeing anyone, and then when I said I wasn’t, he asked why not. I asked how things had gotten so bad in his marriage that it’d ended in divorce. We had a lot of ground to cover after so much time apart and were covering it fast, as if in a hurry to get to the present – the moment on which we could jump into the future.

We’d always had a flirtatious friendship, and one that was always forbidden in some way or another. First by institutions, then by people, then by another institution. And now, we were eating dinner together, but not only that, we were allowed to…in public, without fear of reprisal. But we were different people now, and our discussion reflected it.

“So do you go by Caroline now then?”

“Yeah.”

“I always thought you should. Caroline sounds so like you.”

“Maybe. It wasn’t really a conscious choice or anything. It just kind of happened. I worked in an office of 16 and there was another Kari. I had a real name to go by, so I became Caroline and she got to stick with Kari.”

“Sweet. I’d like to go by Bradley more than I do too.” It had something to do with having lived in Europe for so long and no one understanding him when he told them his name was Brad, or maybe it had something to do with everyone always calling him Ski. It didn’t really matter. I didn’t think I could ever call him Bradley. He was more casual than that, more familiar.

I had shared too much with him over the past eight years. I had given too much of myself to him, and only at that very moment did I realize it. The way he said it was odd too. I can remember his exact words, and how he phrased it really seemed odd to me. He hadn’t said, “I’m seeing the most amazing woman.” Or, “I’m dating someone I really care about.” No, he’d said, “I’ve got the most amazing chica in my life right now.” Chica. Got. Right now. I’ve got the most amazing chica in my life right now. The sentence echoed in my head, as if time were standing still and no other thoughts occupied the space at the time. There was something about the way he’d said it. I couldn’t help but sense that this current girlfriend was someone temporary, someone he controlled, someone he had very little respect for, even if only in proportion to love for himself.

After that, the evening kind of degenerated quickly. I reverted to my protect-your-heart behavior and conversation style, which was far from outgoing, while he became bored – or at least what appeared bored by the number of yawns he let out. He blamed it on the beer he’d had with dinner, but I’d been around him when he was drinking before and I knew better. Beer didn’t make him sleepy; it made him flirt. Which is how we’d gotten ourselves into this mess to begin with oh so many years ago. All I knew was that inside I suddenly felt certain, very certain, that any remaining interest I’d had in him was dead. It had just been inflicted a mortal wound and had died quickly, without lingering or suffering. Suddenly, in a way, he repulsed me.

And the woman. Poor girl. I knew nothing about her other than her name, but suddenly I pitied her. In that instant, I knew that she deserved more than him. That all women deserved more than the kind of man he was. In that instant, I wanted more for myself and for every other woman in the world that what that man would ever be able to give to a relationship. In that instant, I knew that every woman deserved a man who respected her for the kind of woman she is, for her strength and potential and independence; a man that would not take advantage of her vulnerability, who would, in fact, protect her from anyone who might try. And I wondered, how did we get so far from that?